I think that's the production date, rather than the best before date, especially given they're not usually so specific about what time you have to drink it by on its last day.... 😎
I don't put all that much in store about what glass to drink from, though I do like those wide chalice style goblets for a lot of the Belgian ales. It's nonsense about having the right brand glass for most of it (though I admit I'm a sucker for them). It's worth getting a cheapo special offer Leffe with a glass gift box if you see one come round, as that's a good shape.
Do get yourself a Duvel glass if you're ever drinking Duvel though, you need the glass to get the amazing head!
Lastly, I'm insanely jealous - Westvleteren is very hard to get hold of and expensive, and I've never had their blond, despite being a huge fan of lower strength blonds (anything under 7% really, this is Belgian beer...). I'm not sure with the Westvleteren, but the Westmalle Extra (4.8%) used to be kept for the monks themselves - it's still a rare find in the bottle shops
is it though ? ok let me qualify that by saying in the UK yes it can be, right but so Beautiful Beers has got the Blond, the Dubbel and the Quad, from £16 up to £21.
now I wont pay £21 for a 330ml beer, regardless of how good it maybe, since I can get the St Bernardus Abt12 for £4 from the same shop, and the story goes theyre the same beer recipe, just brewed by different monks.
but fine thats the UK, its expensive and harder to find, and fair enough its been more than 10 years since I last went to Brugge, but we found it for sale in a number of bars, probably around 6-8 Euros I think vs the average back then was probably 3-5 Euros for the other beers we drank, and of course they give you the sell that its rare, you have to go on a special day and queue to get it and the monks dont like bars selling too much of it and so on. but we left one of the bars went into one of the nearby bottle shops to have a nosey and they had a case of it selling for 3Euros a bottle, and youre like wait we just paid double for this.
and maybe we were just lucky that day the shop had just got their one and only delivery of the year and we probably got half of it to take home between us, mine all sadly now drunk.
but is it that rare, really ?
as for the appropriate glass, this obviously
but any belgian beer glass shaped like a goblet basically will do, I think the deal is the beer aromas & taste with the head work better when the rim of the glass opens outwards from the bottom, and doesnt come back in cinched, like in a wine glass or the Duvel glass does just below the rim, as that changes the flavours you get from supping the beer, and the stem allows you to hold the glass without transferring your body heat into the beer that warms it up and again alters the flavours. which happens in a tumbler, or pint glass for that matter
so not a full compliment imo, Id rather have that than flower power which is just its supercharged version but the higher abv kills all the subtlety and flavour of the elderflowers.
